PRESS
COMMUNIQUÉ
Paris, 16 May 2001

Fifty-four countries and five international organisations
join in a world-wide exercise in nuclear emergency management

As part of ongoing international collaboration to deal with possible nuclear
emergencies, an extensive international nuclear emergency exercise will
be carried out on 22-23 May 2001 based on a French national exercise at
the Gravelines nuclear power plant located in the north of France, near
the Belgian border. The Gravelines site is home to six pressurised water
reactors, each providing 910 MWe of electrical power. This exercise will
involve a simulated incident at a fictitious unit on this site with the
possibility of an environmental impact. Participants may have to decide
on measures to protect the public based on actual weather conditions at
the time of the exercise.

The
main objectives of the exercise are to test existing national and international
procedures and arrangements for responding to a nuclear emergency, co-ordinate
the release of information, and assess the effectiveness of advisory and
decision-making mechanisms. The exercise is jointly sponsored and co-ordinated
by five international organisations: the European Commission (EC), the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency
(NEA), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the World Meteorological
Organisation (WMO). The 54 countries participating world-wide will follow
their own actual national emergency response plans and procedures, using
their own emergency response centres, and will share information and co-ordinate
response activities.

Based
on new approaches developed during the INEX 2 exercise series (1996-1999),
the involvement of the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) in this exercise is
to promote the implementation and testing of modern monitoring and data
management strategies for nuclear emergencies.

Following
the exercise, each participating organisation will undertake an evaluation
in order to further improve emergency preparedness.